To form a slat grate or similar structure for supporting a mattress of cushions of a bed or other article of furniture, it is known to provide a plurality of spring-action slats which are nailed to bands with equidistant spacing, the bands being braced against members of a support frame.
In other constructions, slats which are supported on a frame and are intended to provide a resilient support in turn, for the mattress or cushions of a bed or sofa, for example, or some other article of furniture, can have rubber caps fitted onto their ends and connected by elastic intermediate members to the members of the support frame.
The European patent document EP-A No. 2 122 957 discloses a slat grate with resilient slats on the ends of which synthetic resin caps are provided, these caps projecting into recesses in the longitudinal boards or members of the support frame.
Recesses are larger than the cross section of the resilient slats and have a bulging inner surface. This permits a rotatable mounting of the slats.
In European patent document A No. 1 56 428, a support body of elastic material is provided for the mounting of resilient slats of a slat grate on the lateral longitudinal members (cheeks or side boards) of a bed frame. The support bodies have indexing projections for connection with the bed frame which afford an elastic mounting of the slats.
It is also known from International patent document WO No. A1 83/1563 to provide a slat grate in which the slats are held in loops of a cable of fixed length. If one of these loops is enlarged because of the load applied to the corresponding slat, other loops are shortened. This allows the slat grate to accommodate itself to the shape of the body of an individual resting upon the grate without generating a resilient deformation of the grate.
Finally, mention may be made of an embodiment of a slat grate in which the resilient slats engage spring plates of metal at their respective ends. The spring action in the latter case is generally found to be unsatisfactory and the construction is expensive to fabricate.
In German Pat. No. 34 39 275, a slat grate is described in which the resilient slats are carried by elastic strands which can have their tension adjusted. The support of each slat is effected through flanges which are fixed at the end regions of each slat and which have shanks passing between the tines of a fork-like support member disposed directly beneath the respective slat. Here the flanges lie directly adjacent one another over the entire length of the grate and can tilt about respective symmetry axes.
This construction has also been found to be advantageous since a twisting of each slat is possible and adjacent slats can twist in opposite directions providing irregular contour to the supporting surface when the weight of the body of a user is applied thereto.